Peacocks

Here are some hilarious peacocks from my 1st graders. Peacocks are one of my favorite animals and I had a blast seeing how different they all turned out!

We used coffee filters and markers for our tie dye feathers.  And they really loved using some of my stamps from home to add designs in the background. I have gold and silver metallic paint left over from last year's Olympic medals that we put to good use with our fancy birds.

Fireflies (Glow in the Dark)

This was a project I did with my 2nd graders at the beginning of the year.  I thought it would be neat to have them make something that would pop off the page...and glow!

First we learned about fireflies and how they are bioluminescent (integrating some science into this project). 

Then we created our value scale moonlit background using sponge brushes and paint.  We used cool colors (blue, purple, teal) and a little bit of white.  I absolutely love the effect of sponge brushes for blending.  

The next class we used oil pastels to draw our designs and details. They could choose which direction they wanted their paper to face (horizontal or vertical).  They added trees, limbs, grass, mason jars, leaves, etc.

After that they designed their lightning bugs on a separate sheet of paper.  I showed them examples of different perspectives and details they could add to the background.  We talked about how they needed to make sure they didn't draw them too small because cardboard would be going behind the bugs. They used sharpies for the outline and markers/construction paper crayons for the inside.

The last step was cutting out the bugs and adding cardboard pieces to the back using liquid glue. We used silver paint to add stars to our sky and GLOW paint on our bug tails.  They loved seeing their art light up when we turned the lights out. I got my glow paint from Michael's, it was very affordable and you don't need much.

Dali Mustache Portraits

My fifth graders needed a fun project to work on while we were waiting for their clay to get out of the kiln.  So I found this awesome idea about doing Salvador Dali Mustache portraits.  It was a humorous project that the kids really enjoyed! 

There's a Dragon in my Art Room is the blog where I saw this great project! 

You can find the original lesson here

I think it was a nice change doing a project about the artist as a person and not just his paintings. 

They really were interested in him since my room is covered in real Dali melting clocks 

(yes, they work!)

Now for our fifth grade interpretations of Dali

Even our Assistant Principal came by to participate in our Dali lesson!